Far from the Taliban regime.
All Afghan participants in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo are "out of the country", as well as two athletes aiming for a qualification for the Beijing Winter Olympics, IOC boss Thomas Bach said on Wednesday.
"From the closing day" of the Tokyo Games, August 8, the IOC was seized of "serious concerns" from the Afghan Olympic Committee "about the evolution of the political and military situation", with the return to power Taliban, Thomas Bach told reporters.
According to the German leader, the Olympic body then worked with national committees and international federations to "help" the Afghan sports world, in particular "women and girls" who seemed most threatened by the new power.
Two athletes will try to participate in the Winter Olympics in 2022
“As a result of our efforts, all Afghans who participated in the Olympic and Paralympic Games are out of the country.
Two winter sports practitioners have also left and continue to train, hoping to qualify for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, ”he continued.
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More broadly, "a significant number of members of the Olympic community in Afghanistan (Editor's note: including families and officials) have received humanitarian visas and have been able to leave the country", added the German, then referring to "a hundred" of people.
He promised that the IOC would "continue to assist" members of the Olympic world who remained in Afghanistan to obtain visas in their turn, and extend scholarships granted to athletes "so that they continue to train".
As for officials, the Afghan Olympic Committee "remains the only one recognized" by the IOC, he said, as well as its members "elected in April 2018".